Molding Operations at Spokane Steel Foundry

by Randy Mullins, Molding Supervisor

Spokane Industries Steel Castings Division boasts two varieties of molding lines in which to generate steel castings and meet our customers demand - Greensand and No-Bake lines. Our No-Bake line is an automated IMF conveyor system. It provides the ability to make larger steel castings and more steel castings per mold. We have the capability of running four to eight patterns at the mixer head with two to four patterns on our backup line depending on the size of the pattern.

As the loop begins each pattern is filled at the mixer station, compacted and sent to get strike off where an automated arm removes the excessive sand from the pattern. The mold is then sent to the roll over machine where the mold is prepped and stripped from the pattern. The empty pattern is looped back around to the mixer head to be set up and filled again.

The mold is then transported to a curing oven where it finishes curing. It then is prepped and cleaned out and sent to the flow coating station where we permeate the mold with a water base coating to give it a good penetration of coating to protect the metal from burn in and to give the casting a smooth finish. Its then sent through a drying oven to cure. This creates a strong barrier between the coating and the molded sand.

The mold proceeds down the conveyor line and reaches the coring line where the cores are fitted in place and prepped for closing. Once the mold is cleaned out and cored up it is sent to the closer which is an automated manipulator that picks up the drag half of the mold and places it on a plate then returns and picks up the cope half, rotates and places it on the drag half, then sent out to be placed on the pouring floor.

The Steel Foundry pouring floor has forty-eight plates that are divided into four rows of twelve plates which can have from forty-eight to ninety-six steel casting molds depending on the size of the molds. Once the molds are poured off, they are transferred to be cooled. When the steel casting reaches its cooling time it is sent to a shaker where the steel casting is separated from the mold and the sand is reclaimed back into the sand system to be reused at the mixing station.

Our Greensand line is where we make our smaller steel castings. We have two lines of greensand molding, an EMI line that makes 30x36 molds and a larger EMI 36x64 molding line. These molding lines are made with a clay bonding system. The clay bonding sand is mixed and monitered with a Hartley automated system that controls the mixture of reclaimed sand, Gilsonite, Bentonite, water and cereal flour which comprises our facing and backing sand. It is then transported to a holding bin for each cope and drag side of the molding lines.

Once a pattern is mounted to a mounting plate on each side of the machines, a flask is placed over the pattern where sand is released and fills the flask. The sand is then tamped and compacted down to form a mold. The mold is stripped from the pattern and sent to the closing station where the molds are cleaned out and cores are placed. When the mold is ready to be closed the cope is brought over and placed over the drag, clamped up and sent to the pouring floor.

Spokane Industries Steel Castings Division can place up to seventy steel casting molds out on the floor to be poured off. When the steel casting has cooled, the mold is sent to our punch out machine where the steel castings are separated and sand returned to be reclaimed in the sand recycling system.

Billy Newman, Production Manager at Spokane Steel Castings states "Our processes and procedures have vastly improved over the last few years as we strive to augment our recycling programs, reduce waste, and reclaim as much of the process as possible which minimizes our carbon footprint. Our goal is to lead by example in the Steel Casting Industry and maximize our efficiencies."

Quench Filtration

Quench Filtration

Our engineering staff has conducted an in-house research project to ascertain the efficiency of filtered water in our quench tanks as opposed to the current quench tank usage, which recycled the same water repeatedly.  The results were quite compelling.  It was discovered that the cleaner the water, the better the properties attained in the quenching process.  Cleaner water creates a “more severe” quench – facilitating more consistent and predictable results, allowing for a tighter tolerance band for our mechanical testing. 

This filtration system with it’s $18K price tag more than pays for itself by eliminating the need to test and dispose of quench water on an annual basis while at the same time delivering more consistent and reproducible results. 

New Quench Filtration System

Spokane Industries Updates Dust Collection Facilities

Spokane Industries is proud to announce a substantial update to it’s Dust Collection facilities for it’s Precision Investment Castings Division.  Installed by Filter Technologies, this improves capacity to a total of 38,000 cfm, an increase of 28,000 cfm over the previous system.  This new state-of-the-art system exemplifies Spokane Industries’ “Attitude of Excellence.” 

SPOKANE, WA – MAY 2013: 

As an industry leader committed to minimizing environmental impact,  maximizing conservation, and improving safety, Spokane Industries has tripled its dust collection capacity utilizing the highest standards in eco-friendly production practices.  A Filter Technologies Model 140 – 1.5 M PB Dust Collector was recently installed at it’s Spokane Investment Casting Division location – augmenting it’s existing Torit Downflo Model DF T4-16 dust collection system.

These upgrades cover all areas of the shop removing fine particulates and pollutants from any possible facility emissions, further purifying the air in the Investment Castings production facility and improving the comfort and safety for all of it’s employees. 

With a future expansion capacity of 11,000 cmf, this new equipment will handily manage the air purification needs in its newly acquired 10,000 sq. ft. expansion.

Visit our website at www.SpokaneIndustries.com to learn more about Spokane Industries and give us your feedback on our new upgrades by posting a comment on our Facebook page.

Casting Demonstration Wows Audience at GSI Manufacturing and Career Expo - Spokane

Casting Demonstration Wows Audience at

GSI Manufacturing and Career Expo

Spokane Industries Steel Castings and Investment Castings Divisions participated in the Greater Spokane Inc. Manufacturing and Career Expo, May 14^th & 15^th at the Spokane Fair and Expo Center.  We  enjoyed immense success with the “Foundry-In-A-Box” demonstrations provided by the American Foundry Society. 

 Foundry-In-A-Box is essentially a hands-on, green sand molding and molten steel pouring demonstration that provides a unique and live demonstration of the casting process.  The kit contains two different molds to choose from, sand augmented with bentonite and light oil to replicate foundry sand, tamping tools, release product, etc. - all that is required to simulate the creation of the cope and drag (top and  bottom) of the sand mold, as done in the foundry.

Once the mold is made and closed, tin is melted in a specially equipped microwave oven and poured into the mold.  At Spokane Industries we specialize in carbon and low alloy steels that require extremely high temperatures to melt.  Given its low melting point and ease of handling, tin is used for demonstration purposes.  

The trade show attendees were able to witness the actual casting process from start to finish.  Casting is a complex process and the hands-on demonstrations vastly enhance our ability to educate the uninitiated about our processes and discuss what makes us unique in the marketplace. 

Our success with these demonstrations is evidenced by show goers overwhelming our neighbor’s booths to get a glimpse of what all the excitement in our booth was about.  We are working on a similar demonstration of our investment casting procedure to show off that process in the future.

The Greater Spokane Manufacturing Expo boasted more than 90 companies and attracted over 1,200 students from regional schools.  It is a great venue to recruit students and other attendees for future employment opportunities, and share the process, applications and benefits of castings.

Foundry In A Box

“The response to our “Foundry in a Box” that we purchased from AFS was amazing!  We are always looking for new ways to get prospective employees interested in the foundry.  This is it!”  

Tracei Scofield, HR Director, Spokane Industries.

Chemistry and Metallurgy in the Investment Casting Industry

by Rick Price, Process Control Supervisor, Spokane Precision Castings Division of Spokane Industries

I've always been fascinated with metals. When I was a young child, I used to stoke up the campfire as a Boy Scout just to watch aluminum cans melt. All I knew about metals at that time was that aluminum and steel were different. As I worked different jobs at Spokane Industries I learned about different alloys, chemistry and metallurgy and how those elements affect the steel. Though I am not a metallurgist by trade, I have acquired a great depth of knowledge through my thirst for learning and a variety of avenues of study and research afforded me through my employment at Spokane Industries.

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, through its Spokane Steel Castings, Spokane Metal Products and Spokane Precision Castings operations, has been providing customers around the world with cost effective solutions to their steel castings and industrial fabrication needs since 1952. Today, SPOKANE INDUSTRIES is a modern diversified company with plant and manufacturing facilities occupying more than 240,000 square feet. The company serves a large number of customers in many industries -- from aerospace, construction and agriculture, to transportation, aggregate processing, and manufacturing.

Alloy selection is a key factor when designing an investment casting. Strength, ductility, toughness, hardness, machinability, weldability, wear resistance and corrosion resistance are just a few of the design criteria that must be taken into consideration. In ferrous alloys for example, carbon plays an important role in determining strength and hardness. Other elements, such as molybdenum, chromium and nickel effect through hardness, or hardenability.

Chromium imparts corrosion and oxidation resistance in stainless steel when present in amounts greater than about 11%. Once the proper combination of various elements and weight percentages is determined, most alloys are then heat treated to attain the final properties. Castings are generally subjected to a high temperature soak, quenched at a pre-determined rate and then tempered at an intermediate temperature.

The chemistry of every heat of metal poured at Spokane Precision Castings is analyzed to insure that we meet customer specifications. Metal samples are taken at various stages throughout each heat and sparked in an optical emission spectrometer. During this process, each element emits a unique wavelength of light that is diffracted through a grating and directed to individual photomultiplier tubes. The measured light intensity is translated into a weight percentage for over a dozen elements. Each element has a range it must fall within for the metal to be in specification and to meet certain requirements.

Spokane Precision Castings runs this process on both a preliminary as well as a final sample to ensure consistency. We check chemistry, make alloy additions, pour the heat, and then test another button after the chemistry has been adjusted as the final chemistry for that heat. Our company is in the process of testing a new product to take a sample out of the stream of molten metal as it is being poured into the casting. This will improve our final chemistry analysis and results.

Currently, Spokane Precision Castings is working on creating a range of castings that would be made out of a cobalt-based alloy. Cobalt has many different properties than an iron-based alloy i.e. higher corrosion resistance, good wear properties, and is often used as medical implants.

As the company progresses, we want to improve Spokane Industries Quality Assurance efficiencies to transfer the knowledge of the Quality Assurance personnel to the technicians on the production floor. This constant push to resolve problems at the lowest level helps to rectify in process issues as they occur. We currently are implementing written and visual instructions to facilitate this transfer of knowledge and to augment our ongoing training and quest for continuous improvement.

Jeff Kuntz, Production Manager at Spokane Precision Castings Division of Spokane Industries states "to make a quality investment casting takes a great understanding of materials, a solid grasp on how those materials react with one another, a broad array of process controls and a quest for quality. Making a thousand castings as opposed to a single casting is key in understanding the investment casting industry. The investment casting process is very effective at producing consistent quality over a large run of parts. That being said, it is only true when the organization recognizes the dependency on tight process and quality controls in order to meet all customer demands as we do here at Spokane Precision Castings."

Lean Manufacturing in the Steel Castings Industry

by Billy Newman

Lean Manufacturing Definition: Lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as "Lean", is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. In a more basic term, More value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as "Lean" only in the 1990s. It is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes in order to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world's largest automaker has focused attention on how it has achieved this.

Lean manufacturing is a variation on the theme of efficiency; it is a present-day instance of the larger recurring theme in human life of increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas of what matters. Thus it is a chapter in the larger narrative that also includes, for example, the folk wisdom of thrift, time and motion study, Taylorism, the Efficiency Movement, and Fordism. Lean manufacturing is often seen, with the benefit of hindsight, as a progression from, or a better attempt at the same goal of, earlier efficiency efforts, that is, picking up where earlier leaders like Taylor or Ford left off, and learning from their mistakes.

Lean Manufacturing focuses on two main points, reduction of through-put time and elimination of waste. Through-put can be described as the time it takes an order to be received until it is on the shipping dock. Elimination of waste can be seen in several different areas. The Seven Wastes are: 1) Motion; any wasted motion to pick up or stack, walk and/or lack of direction or access, 2) Over-production; labor needed to process more than is needed, 3) Transport; multiple locations for the same information and/or wasted effort to transport work, 4) Inventory; maintaining excess inventory of raw materials, work in process, and/or finished goods, along with outdated or obsolete information, 5) Processing; doing more work than is necessary, 6) Waiting; any non-work time, and 7) Defects; everything required to rework or repair form.

For the Steel Castings Division of Spokane Industries, lean manufacturing is the single most effective strategy that will allow us to improve our quality while reducing our overall costs. In this commitment to Lean, we started with 6S, which is an acronym composed of Safety, Sort, Simplify, Shine, Standardize and Sustain.

Initiating the 6S practices made sense for a number of reasons. It was obvious the old way of approaching business practices was outdated. With obvious waste all around us it was easy to see that our production levels had plateaued, but the culture of the employees was not such that change would happen on its own. There was a veteran work force that had been doing it the same way for years, and they werent about to change, because in their view it wasnt broken. The visible change needed was provided by 6S to help jumpstart a revamped culture throughout the foundry.

We broke the foundry down into 10 sections and began implementing 6S. In each section we did an introduction class on 6S and Lean manufacturing, basically subscribing to a train-do model. Each member would actively participate in a kaizen event within a week of the class. In some cases we did the same section multiple times in order to achieve the desired results. At least one event was participated in by every foundry employee.

An additional step of our Lean journey began with the understanding of Autonomous Maintenance. Autonomous maintenance is the initial standard in Total Productive Maintenance or TPM. TPM is a proactive approach that essentially looks to reduce inventory (spare parts) and catastrophic failures by preventative measures.

As we proceed, we will continue our 6S and autonomous maintenance efforts while we perform Value Stream Mapping (VSM) of our processes. VSM is the series of processes that directly create value for the external customer by efficiently streamlining our work flows. We will do this to identify safety concerns, waste, bottlenecks, and communication breakdowns.

Tyrus Tenold, President of Foundry Operations for Spokane Industries, states, "To this point, a growing asset to Spokane Steel Castings are our Lean Manufacturing practices. As the culture continues to change, we implement new ideas on a regular basis. We have fully embraced Lean Manufacturing and we now look forward to seeing continuous improvements for the mutual benefits of customers and our ourselves."

Dimensional Verification of Steel and Iron Castings.

by David Jolin, Quality Assurance Manager, Spokane Industries

One key benefit of steel and iron castings is the ability to be formed into complex, organic shapes that are not easily duplicated in fabricated, or even forged parts. Because of this, significant cost and labor savings can be achieved with castings, but these complex shapes can be quite difficult to inspect with traditional dimensional inspection techniques. The typical dimensional testing toolbox requires for numerous specialty items to complete the task adequately.

In addition to the complex shapes that are common for castings, an iron or steel cast surface will be textured by the molding material that the molten metal was poured into, usually bonded sand. This surface texture can affect the accuracy and repeatability of the inspection if care is not taken during the measurement process.

One important issue that complicates the dimensional inspection of iron and steel castings is the draft angle that is required on patterns that are used in sand molds. Draft angles are a manufacturing requirement of the sand mold process that allows the pattern to be drawn back out of the sand after the impression is made. These draft angles are rarely shown on casting blueprints and solid models but are usually noted on the prints as: Draft not to exceed 1.5 Degrees, or something similar.

The dimensional inspection of castings has traditionally relied on the standard hand-tools that reside in most inspectors toolboxes: height gauges, calipers, radius gauges, snap gauges, tape measures, etc. These hand tools continue to play an important role in the inspection process, but, because of the unique issues with castings as noted above, they cant always be relied upon for the complete dimensional inspection that may be required. In addition to standard hand tools, Spokane Industries uses both a traditional, table-based Mitutoyo CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) that has a 24x24x18 working volume and a Faro-Arm with an 8-foot sphere working volume.

The traditional CMM is primarily used for the measurement of smaller, investment castings produced in our lost-wax facility as well as for the castings that are further processed by machining. The Faro Arm is a portable, articulating-arm CMM that allows for much more complete and detailed measurements than would be possible with either hand tools or the traditional CMM. Spokane Industries uses a Faro Arm that has an accuracy of plus or minus .003 of an inch. Although this accuracy is not as precise as a standard, table-based CMM it is more than acceptable for the tolerances usually applied to iron and steel castings.

The Faro Arms measurement software contains all the standard measurement tools that are common in most measurement software packages: plane, line, distance, circle, etc., but the Faro Arm gives the dimensional inspector the ability to digitally trace the contours of the casting and compare the CAD data directly against the trace. This tracing capability of the Faro Arm is accomplished by moving the tip of the arm against the feature of the casting that needs measuring.

The software will record the path of the tip as small, stitched-line segments or digital points. These line segments or points can then be measured in the software. Because of this free-form recording of the actual shape of the casting within the software, the dimensional inspector is able to record the true shape of the casting that can be measured, viewed on-screen, reviewed via email, and rechecked even if the casting is no longer present. These features allow Spokane Industries more accurate and quicker dimensional inspections of castings that can be communicated with our customers via traditional dimensional reports, CAD/actual casting scan overlay, or a combination of both.

David Jolin, Quality Assurance Manager at Spokane Industries states, "another advantage of this scanning capability is to reverse-engineer existing castings that may not have a blueprint or cad-data. This is especially helpful if a customer has only a casting to provide to Spokane Industries to copy. Spokane Industries can scan the casting with the Faro Arm, generate a blueprint and CAD model and submit these back to the customer for review and approval. Once approved, Spokane Industries would then create the pattern for the molding operation, and then pour a first part sample. This sample can then be confirmed back against the scan of the original part or to the created and approved blueprint as well."

The realm of dimensional inspection has moved far beyond the days of hand-written dimensional reports listing the results to the nearest fraction of an inch. The advancements that the digital age and computer-aided inspection systems have spawned allow us to produce parts and inspect them with more detail and precision than ever before. This increased detail results in a broader understanding of the casting process that encourages engineers to design even more complex castings. As customer expectations mature, so does the ability of our QA department to meet and exceed them.

Spokane Steel Foundry Division - Melting and Pouring

by Dave Davis, Pouring Operations

Spokane Industries Steel Castings Division boasts two electric arc furnaces. We utilize one for our steel casting products and we use the other one for our high chrome iron wear parts. Each furnace has been updated with a touch screen computer which controls the tap position, amperage, and also controls all of the roof movements for charging the furnace. We also can keep track of which alloys are used in each heat, which heats we have run along with brick life for each furnace which helps maintain and control furnace life.

Our Steel Castings Division averages 5 tons of material per heat. We use only recycled steel in the charge that is loaded from the scrap pile once it is weighed. Our overhead crane transports it down to the furnace area and using an orange peel type bucket it is positioned over the furnace for loading. Once the furnace is loaded and running it takes about ninety minutes from start to finish during which time we monitor temperature and also the chemistry of the melt.

There are three different samples taken by the melters. The first is to check for carbon content and chemistry for the blow down. We blow down at least 30 points - this is to ensure proper cleansing of the metal. The melters then take the chemistry and calculate exactly what alloys are needed to meet our customers steel casting specification. After we tap the furnace, another final sample is taken to make sure that each and every element is within customer specification.

At Spokane Industries Steel Castings the melters use an ARL 3,460 spectrograph to analyze each sample taken. Once the final sample is taken and verified to be within customers specification the steel casting is then allowed to be poured.

The metal is transferred to the proper designated station by an overhead crane. First the crane retrieves up the holding ladle from the ladle area and transports it to the furnace for filling. Once the chemistry sample has been taken it travels to the designated pouring station to wait for verification that everything is within specification before continuing on and pouring.

Spokane Industries Steel Castings Divisions' ladle department is equipped to pour an array of weights from 50Lbs to 11,500Lbs. We have many different ladles at our disposal. The side pour ladles range from 500Lb capacity to 1,200Lbs and our bottom pours can accommodate 1,200Lbs and all the way up to 12,000Lbs. We also have a 3,000Lb lip pour and a 3,000Lb tea pot.

Our ladles are prepared using the board lining materiel that in turn provides a cleaner metal with less refractory. It also allows ease of building and faster turnaround times. This method accommodates both steel and iron pours. Each heat poured is monitored for which ladle is used, who poured, and we keep track of temperature to insure that a quality casting is produced.

Our pouring ranges vary by part and specifications. The steel can be anywhere from 2,850 to 2,920 degrees and the high chrome iron range is 2,500 to 2,560. The temperature is taken throughout the heat so as to maintain quality and consistency.

Andy Kruse, Process Control Engineer states "we also utilize a digital scale on our crane to monitor and capture weights which allows us to be more accurate with pour weights and allows us to not have short pours or a lot of end metal. This information also helps the melt side as well. We can maximize the heat size to what has to be poured and reduce end metal. We can also capture melt loss - all of which helps us to be more efficient and conserve power in this ever-changing steel casting industry."

Spokane Industries Steel Castings Division is a well managed, state of the art facility prepared to meet and exceed our customers expectations and specifications. On-time delivery, fast turn-around and industry leading quality controls are what our customers expect and exactly what we deliver.

High Quality Industrial Steel Castings & Crusher Wear Parts

High Quality Industrial Steel Castings and Crusher Wear Parts
by Richard Palmer

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, through its Steel Castings, Metal Products and Precision Castings operations, has been providing customers around the world with cost effective solutions to their steel castings and industrial fabrication needs since 1952. Today, SPOKANE INDUSTRIES is a modern diversified company with plant and manufacturing facilities occupying more than 240,000 square feet. The company serves a large number of customers in many industries -- from aerospace, construction and agriculture, to transportation, aggregate processing, and manufacturing.

While the company has experienced decades of steady growth, SPOKANE INDUSTRIES continues to serve many of its original customers -- some of who still order steel castings from their original patterns. The reasons for that kind of loyalty are simple -- SPOKANE INDUSTRIES delivers -- with precision, performance and productivity that meet and often exceed customer expectations. Today, SPOKANE INDUSTRIES operates an environmentally clean, well-managed and technologically advanced organization dedicated to meeting the needs of its customers.

With over 50 years experience in wear resistant steel castings SPOKANE INDUSTRIES Wear Parts have proven superior performance under a variety of conditions across America, Canada, South America, Mexico and Australia.

Known as an industry leader in vertical and horizontal shaft crusher replacement wear parts, our stringent process controls coupled with our new automated molding line assures you a consistent fit. Heat-treating is essential for longer lasting and consistently uniform wearing parts to achieve maximum wear life. Our patented ceramic technology leads the way for reducing wear cost in most applications for Vertical Shaft Impact Crushers, extending wear life 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 times compared to standard high chrome parts.

We provide Mining Components that play a crucial role in the development of one of the worlds largest open pit mining shovels as well as the multi-hundred ton wheeled vehicles utilized to haul the materials to processing.

Additionally, our long wall components, cutting heads and steel castings for conveyor belts can be found in mines throughout the US, Australia and China. Short lead times, high quality and quick turnaround allow us to respond quickly to our customers needs.

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES has developed and maintains a long-term, successful relationship supplying high-quality steel castings to various oil-tool companies. Our steel castings are required to perform in the extreme low-temperature environment of the North Atlantic Ocean where failure could result in severe injury or death. We are able to achieve this by working closely with our customers on design requirements, fabrication to casting conversions, material selection, mechanical properties, and inspection requirements.

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES Is a place where were both personally and professionally committed to the satisfaction of each and every customer. In our relationships with customers, we try to keep in mind that youre not just coming to us to buy steel castings or metal fabrications, but to solve a particular problem. At SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, weve always taken pride in our company as more than just a place to work. Thats why we put all our experience, effort and technology at your disposal to find the solution you need to help make your business more successful. And thats why we go the extra mile to be sure youre satisfied that weve done the job on time and in a cost-effective manner.

Many of us are second and third generation employees - that's why we're proud of our workforce, where our record of employee retention and good labor relations is based on mutual respect and pride in a job well done. Were also proud of the fact that were a family-owned company. We would like to invite you to come and see the precision, productivity and pride that makes SPOKANE INDUSTRIES the right choice for your next job.